


Don't Give Away The End

by chookiecat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Mostly Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-23 07:31:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16154456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chookiecat/pseuds/chookiecat
Summary: "How come she married him?" Harry asked miserably. "She hated him!""Nah, she didn't," said Sirius.*~*It's 1977. Lily Evans-Potter is still just regular Lily Evans, with a shiny Head Girl badge and a chip on her shoulder. James Potter is... still working on deflating that head a little bit.He Who Must Not Be Named is on the rise, Remus is watching that moon rise, Sirius is pretty sure he forgot his homework (again), and James is on the outs with Lily (again again).There's going to be a Fight and an Order and a Funeral or two. There's going to be Exams, and a Wedding, and a Prophecy. But you already know all of that. It's the in between that really matters. Don't give away the end.





	Don't Give Away The End

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for joining me!
> 
> This story is predominately canon compliant, as far as I can tell, with room for some creative licence in there. I can't quite keep up with everything on Pottermore, though, I admit. 
> 
> This is going to be a long work, starting with years 1-5. The start of each chapter will have a bit of a music recommendation for the chapter - usually, something that inspires the feel of the chapter. It's not necissarily the lyrics, but the melodies, and how they drive the story forward. 
> 
> This chapter's song is Breathe by Alexi Murdoch. 
> 
> I hope you like it

Lily Evans first knows that something about her is different one Thursday morning when she is really, really sick, stuck up in bed, and wishing that a new book would walk itself over from its place on her bookshelf on the other side of the room, to her place in bed. The way she knows is that the book does fly over on command, at speed, and hit her in the head.  
She was home sick with a horrible head-cold, however, so when she told her mother about it, Martha Evans laid the back of her hand on Lily’s forehead and despaired, “Dermott, she’s getting sicker. Lily, sweetheart, books don’t fly-”  
“Not off a bookshelf, you ridiculous loser.”  
“Petunia.” warned Lily’s father.  
“You _obviously_ forgot picking it up and just found it in your bed,” Petunia snarked, all of about eleven years old.  
Lily, probably eight, had been feeling herself getting better, and had a very vivid memory of the book flying towards her and smacking her in the face, on the other hand, simply proved that this particular book – a well loved, if slightly battered hardcover of Black Beauty – _could_ fly, by picking it up and throwing it at Petunia.  
In hindsight, she’d made better choices before in her eight years.

*~*

She next knew something was a bit up when at age nine, the power was out in her whole street, but Lily had been absolutely absorbed in her television program. When the power had cut out, the television remained on all the way until the end of the program.

*~*

Another big hint as to Lily’s magic was the day that she was fighting with Petunia about – well, it can’t have been that important – and Petunia had told her to go and jump in a lake.  
“No _you_ go jump in a lake!” was the best insult Lily could conjure – that was until Petunia was drenched in a bucket worth of water from literally absolutely nowhere.

*~*

Admittedly, the biggest clue of her magic was the day the Hogwarts Letter arrived via Owl Post addressed in Professor McGonagall’s perfect script.

*~*

Lily’s family can’t get onto the platform unfortunately, so she read the instructions over and over and over again to make sure she was getting them right. Petunia was waiting with glee for her to run headfirst into the brick wall and brain herself.  
Severus had come in with Lily’s family, and they both shared an anxious glance between themselves when Petunia laughed darkly under her breath. Again.  
“Move it along Squirty-Lou.”  
“Francis, don’t tease your sister,” sighed a woman with two children with trolleys packed just like Severus and Lily’s.  
“Mum, it’s fine,” the boy – Francis – older than Lily and confidently handsome – sighed back. “I’ll watch out for her.”  
“You’d better, Francis Longbottom.”  
“Mum,” he sighed again, and disappeared through the barrier with an eye roll.  
Severus and Lily both shuddered.  
“Mum,” Lily said, tugging her mother’s sleeve. Lily’s mother was equally pale.  
“It’s okay, sweetheart, see,” Martha gulped. “Just like revolving doors.”  
Francis’s mother sidled up next to them. “First time to Hogwarts?”  
Lily’s parents almost jumped out of their shoes.  
“Sorry! Sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you, just looking to ease the transition. Muggles, yes?”  
“What the devil is a-” Dermott began to say.  
“Yes.” Severus said.  
“Hi,” poked out the younger of this lady’s two children – Francis’s sister. “I’m Evanna.”  
“It’s Evanna’s first time through to the platform, too,” their mother informed them. “Nothing to it, I’ve done it a dozen times. It’s a deep breath, a firm push, and then you’re on the other side.” She has a warm, wide smile, but a no nonsense attitude. Lily quite likes her, and she certainly trusts her.  
“Come on, I’ll show you,” she invites. She steps up to the Platform 10 barrier. “Deep breath, and-” and then she falls into the barrier. Lily’s eyes were as wide as saucers. Petunia was pretending that the hairs on the back of her arms weren’t standing up.  
Lily turns to Severus and holds out her fist.  
“Paper scissors rock.” They call. Lily wins. She taps the top of his hand with hers, and says “You first.” Severus shudders, nods, and steels himself.  
Deep breath, and _whoosh_. Severus is gone.  
Lily gulps.  
They don’t know each other, but the universal law of eleven year olds is this: a paper scissors rock challenge will not go unmet, so when Evanna sticks out her fist without a word, Lily responds.  
She wins again.  
“See you on the other side,” Evanna smiled nervously.  
Deep breath, and _whoosh_. Evanna is gone.  
Lily turns to give her parents one last hug goodbye. She goes to hug Petunia, but it doesn’t go well, so she leaves that well enough alone.  
A few steps up to the barrier. A deep breath. One. Two. Three.  
_Whoosh._

There is a deep horn from the train as it billows smoke, preparing to depart. Lily looks back at the solid barrier and laughs.  
When she turned back to the train, she could see Evanna, and she met her with another small smile.  
“Do you want to-?” Evanna indicates towards the train.  
“Yeah! Lets – Severus! Hey Sev!” she calls him over. “We’re going to find somewhere to sit.”  
“Yeah, lets.”  
The train is pretty full, so they find a compartment with only a couple of other boys who look around their age already inside.  
“Hi,” Evanna says, knocking on the compartment door. “Can we…?”  
“Absolutely,” smiles one of the boys. “Plenty of room for more.”  
They do the rounds of introductions. Lily learns that Evanna Longbottom’s older brother Francis is actually Frank, and is the new Gryffindor Prefect.  
“Prat,” Evanna mumbled.  
She learns that James Potter comes from a long line of Gryffindors, and that Severus doesn’t really think that’s something to be boasting about.  
“Of all the houses,” Severus mumbled.  
Peter Pettigrew’s mother had thought he was – Lily learned the term for Squib – until he was playing dodgeball at school and managed to explode a ball coming for his face. He was a mousey thing, still carrying a kilo or five of baby weight. He looked at James like he was the best thing since sliced bread.  
They laugh a little awkwardly, because they don’t really know each other, they don’t know if they’ll be friends. Five people in the compartment, and they could all be in different dormitories for all they know. They chat idly, they smile, James tries to make them all laugh, and succeeds a few times, except for Severus, who it seems is rubbed the wrong way by James.

When they arrive for sorting, Severus reminds her about all of what he has always considered to be her best qualities.  
“Don’t forget,” he whispers.  
“Why does it matter?” she asked.  
“Just remember – you’re resourceful, and strong, and determined.”  
“Timothy Aster,” calls Professor McGonagall. Lily likes her already. Lily knows she is supposed to be listening, but she sort of isn’t.  
The first years area all standing in between the Blue and Yellow houses – the slightly less rambunctious houses – but they all clap and cheer when a new student joins their ranks.  
“Jillian Barnes.” Severus continues to fidget. Everyone is nervous. She sort of is, too. The Great Hall with the enchanted ceiling seems like it’s a celebration. Severus looks like he’s at a funeral.  
“Sirius Black.”  
Lily isn’t really listening, but she sees his eyebrows disappear into the sorting hat before McGonagall pulls it off his head. There is a shuffle around the room – a shuffle of disbelief, angry tittering from the red left side of the room, where Sirius has to go and sit, angry tittering, people standing and pushing on the green side of the room. Confused and dazed tittering from the centre. Sirius Black was not supposed to be announced as a Gryffindor. Lily does not fail to notice that no one cheers.  
The cheering begins again with Reginald Catchpole, Hufflepuff, albeit a little restrained. The houses, however, are back in full force by the time Professor McGonagall reaches “Lily Evans.”  
“Resourceful. Determined.” Severus whispers in her ear.  
The walk up the stairs to the chair is an eternity. She turns to sit, and the whole school is watching and waiting.  
The hat drops onto her head.  
_Hello_ comes a murmur from inside her head. _What’s going on in here?_  
Lily tries to compose herself. Strong. Resourceful. Determined.  
_Prepared_ muses the hat in her head. _Someone has coached you._  
No!  
_Defiant_ claims the hat.  
What?  
_Curious_ it questions.  
Huh?  
_Interesting. Bits of them all. But where do you go?_  
Where do I belong?  
_What is your potential? What do you seek?_  
I want to be the best. I want to learn it all. I want to have fun and make friends and have a big, full life.  
_But where to put you. All that brain, and there’s kindness, too. Resourceful? Maybe, but certainly brave, to answer me back. Where do you go? What do you need? Where is the best place for this little seed?_  
“Gryffindor.” The hat decides. Lily is surprised to learn this has been but a moment. Her table – the red table, which has received just one entrant – Sirius Black – is uproarious with a non-controversial choice.  
She goes to sit down, but as she looks back down to see Severus, he won’t meet her eyes.  
The Gryffindors come in thick and fast after that. Taylah Everings arrives immediately after Lily. Evanna Longbottom waves at her brother from her seat. Remus Lupin sits down gingerly next to Taylah with a smile. Lily doesn’t catch all of their names, but Peter Pettigrew and James Potter arrive at her table as well.  
Severus Snape does not.  
He goes to sit on the other side of the room. He still won’t meet her eyes.

__

*~*

First year is a blur for Lily. There is a very clear demarcation down the Gryffindor common room from about Day 10, which more or less remains that way within their year the whole way through the next six years.

Three of the four boys who would later become known as the Marauders quickly become thick as thieves. Peter began September 1st following James around, and he didn’t really stop doing that for the next eight or nine years. Remus Lupin takes unwell very early, and James seems to want to ply him with food and cushions.  
Sirius Black, on the other hand, tries to talk to some old friends and family, but that doesn’t go down that well. Lily comes across him a few times with black eyes or a broken nose, and he Firmly Avoids her Gaze and limps to the hospital wing. It doesn’t take long before she sees James Potter – all of eleven – step between a wand held by the Head Boy, and Sirius Black, who was on the ground with a broken wrist.  
“You won’t get in the way of discipline, Mr Potter,” the Head Boy says, with a raised eyebrow. “Five points from Gryffindor.”  
“This isn’t discipline. You’ve been thumping him all week and he keeps telling the matron he’s falling down the stairs. You’ve had your fun. Leave him alone now.”  
“You want _this_?” The Head Boy asks, indicating to the broken Sirius, with his stiff upper lip and broken wrist. “Blood traitor?”  
“I beg your pardon?” James draws himself up to his full five-foot-one and puffs out his tiny eleven-year-old chest. Lily isn’t quite sure who the Head Boy is referring to as a Blood Traitor. She isn’t quite sure she’s supposed to know.  
“What’s going on here?” comes the call from Professor Slughorn. “Move along, out of the way, come on now.”  
“Come on.”  
James Potter sticks his hand out to Sirius to help him up. Sirius wipes his bloody nose on his sleeve, and takes James’s hand in his own good one gingerly, and begins a limp.  
James bites his lip.  
“I think we got off to a bad start. I’d heard things, about your family, maybe.”  
“I’m not my family.” Sirius glowers.  
“I know. I didn’t mean-” he starts.  
“No, it’s fine.”  
“It’s not fine. Judging you on your name makes me no better than them. Can we, I don’t know, start again?”  
James sticks out his hand again, and Sirius eyes it cautiously.  
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m James Potter. People call me Jim.”  
“No they don’t.”  
“Well, they could, if they wanted to.”  
Sirius smiles, and shakes James’s hand.  
“I’m Sirius. Just Sirius is fine. You don’t look like a Jim.”  
“Well, why don’t I take you to the hospital wing? You look like you need an episkey, quick smart.”  
Sirius has rebuffed all of Lily’s attempts to help him this last week, so she is surprised when she sees him nod. She’s swept up in the crowd of onlookers, then, all trying to escape the eye of Professor Slughorn, so as to avoid detention.  
This, as some are prone to describe, marked the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Sirius was seldom away from James’s side after this, and the Marauders became a force with which to be reckoned.

*~*

Lily herself found her own band of girls – Evanna Longbottom and Taylah Everings quickly fell into step. Evans, Evanna, and Everings snapped together as if by force. ‘The Evs’ as they became known, through some very clever brainstorming at age eleven, almost had no choice but to forge the bonds that would link them their whole lives.

Mary Macdonald, Louise Noonan, and Jason Wells became their very own Golden Trio. Lily quite liked this group of people in her House – they could be relied upon for a good chat, a hearty laugh, and even usually proved adept potions partners as required. She quite liked this Trio, but she would always know that her truest friends were her two best girls.

She had never understood, even from a voracious obsession with Enid Blyton books as a child, the friendships forged in the fires of boarding school. Part permanent sleepover, part sister, part best friend, Lily was loathe to remember that there was a time she had hoped for a regular, normal life, as her sister dreamed. Really, from the get-go, she was drawn to her friends and their wild antics, their late night hysteria, their blooming self-confidence. Lily had found her home with Taylah and Evanna at Hogwarts.

Lily lives her whole first year modelling herself on Dorcas Meadowes – perfect sixth year, Gryffindor Prefect, hair with nary a fly-away strand. She was quick to laugh, always carried a novel with her, and always had a spare moment to chat with the first years. Dorcas had lived next door to James for his whole life, so she already knew him well. 

James adored Dorcas, too, and probably had a bit of a crush on her. She was, after all, aside from being perfectly perfect in every way, the Captain and Chaser of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and had bit of a reputation for occasionally getting into an itty-bitty bit of strife once or twice. 

*~*

Second-year came and went. Lily spent a lot of time with Severus – usually quietly, in the library, in a back corner. Her housemates didn’t understand her relationship with Sev – that the friendship formed as children, the in-jokes shared, the history long held, mattered to Lily. Usually, when they hang out, it’s really just the two of them.

Second year brings around Dorcas Meadowes’s final year at Hogwarts, and Lily is bitterly disappointed when her idol is not made Head Girl. Marlene Stevenson, Ravenclaw beauty, with a much more clean detention record, takes the top job. Lily is honestly mostly just glad that Lucius Malfoy had graduated and finished besmirching the position. 

Dorcas is a master potion brewer, and when Lily asks her for a little help on an essay for Professor Slughorn, Dorcas grins widely.  
“Not a problem at all, Lily,” Dorcas gushed. “Come sit by Auntie Cassie as she explains all about an infusion of monkshood.”

Dorcas starts a study group for second and third year potions, which quickly becomes wildly popular for Gryffindor students. Sirius barely manages not to melt his cauldron each lesson, but grips by every year on the potions final after that. 

*~*

Lily had noticed something around the ways of her first year or two at Hogwarts. Something strange was occurring within the magical community. While on the outside, the Western World was flourishing in new-found acceptance of the ‘other’ after the end of the second World War, the magical community was becoming more closed off. Where in the outside world they were striking down segregation and racism, the Modern World over, in her new community, the talk of ‘blood’ was rife. Lily knew that the Mistress of Magic equivalent in the States had been an African American female for almost ten years – across the course of the 20’s. Honest to goodness colour talk was really no worse than elsewhere in Britain, but the concept of pure blood, or traitors to that blood, was a hot issue. There were a number of choice words for Muggles, and a great number more, with more choice connotations, for people with non-magic blood. People like her. She is thirteen years old the first time someone implies that she will get on their knees for a pure blood wizard, as would be her duty. 

In third year, new Head Girl Alice Masters takes over Dorcas’s potions study group. It’s the first time in a long, long while that two students from the same house are appointed Head Boy and Girl, but really, there is no one for the job but Evanna’s brother Frank Longbottom, and Alice was sweet enough to turn candy pink – these were no brainer choices that had no further alternative. Lily adores Alice like she loves Dorcas – she looks for her guidance, and loves that Alice is so giving with her time. Evanna had known Alice for years, as her brother’s girlfriend, so Alice always paid them just a little more attention. 

Dorcas’s graduation means that James makes the Quidditch Team as Chaser #3, and is damned honoured at the privilege. His first few games – well, his first few games are pretty bad. Eventually, he gets back into the rhythm of it, but that Hufflepuff Keeper is an absolute gun, and James dreads facing them again. Slowly but surely, he improves – under threat of pain and injury by his own Captain, and, of course, under firm written advice and instruction from Dorcas Meadowes, who is closely following the season, and can usually be counted upon to have the wireless on listening to the commentary on Saturday mornings. 

The Marauders start work on what most of them will call their Greatest Legacy – the Map – when Remus stumbles upon a second hidden passageway out of Hogwarts behind the portrait of Gregory the Smarmy. It starts out as ‘hey we should write this down – quick, Moony, chuck us a quill’ and grows legs and gets serious. 

Third year is also when James Potter makes his affections for Lily known for the first time. She notes that it coincides with the semester she first begins to develop breasts. 

This is also the year James, Sirius, and Peter work out that Remus is a werewolf, and hatch a truly unadvisable plan.

 

*~*

In Fourth Year, Potions Club is extended to more ages of students. Where Dorcas had run a Potions study group out of honest to goodness talent, and Alice had shown just true dedication and hard work, the new Gryffindor sub-potions masters were a joint effort, and an exercise in adapting. Gideon and Fabian Prewett were polar opposites, aside from being identical twins. Gideon was sort of a rugged handsome, rough and tumble Quidditch Keeper, where Fabian was wiry and mellow, and just your regular kind of keeper – the kind you want to take home to your mother. Both boys were swoonable, and most girls on campus had a preference for sensitive Fabian, but Lily was tentative to admit that Gideon, who was not afraid to ruffle her hair and give her a roguish wink, was her favourite.  
Gideon and Fabian, however, were just as skilled as the potions mistresses before them, and could extend potions club out to further years, as there were two of them.

Fourth year brings the fourteen-year-old drama that has been experienced by students more or less worldwide. No one gets a haircut, there’s a lot of world-weary sighing and eye rolling. Hormones run rampant – it’s not just Lily’s silent crush on Gideon Prewett, or James’s much more vocal candle held for Lily. Taylah confesses to her Evs her crush on poor, sickly Remus Lupin, who is so _sensitive_ (which she gushes in a similar manner to the way people gush about Fabian) and really _listens_ when people talk. Lily suspects that most men would really appear to be listening when Taylah talks, as she quickly becomes the hottest ticket in town. As soon as she had her braces removed, she shot up four inches in height and discovered lipgloss. Suddenly, she was all legs and blonde hair, and she suddenly became the most sought after girl in fourth-year for a trip to Madame Pudifoots. 

Evanna pretends that she, like a lot of the student body, crushes on Fabian Prewett, because it’s sort of an easy lie. Taylah reads her diary to confirm her suspicion of a crush on Sirius Black. Eventually, by the law of all that is holy to fourteen-year-old girls, Lily and Taylah make Evanna lay her hand on a copy of Witch Weekly and try to swear that her crush is Fabian, which, of course, Evanna will not do. Witch Weekly oaths are more than just a regular pinky-swear.

Soon, the Marauders are inventing charms, putting location spells, and anti-tampering spells, and adding new sections of parchment to their baby, the Map. It’s ready by the start of fourth year, and it soon becomes the fifth Marauder. They collectively call it the Marauder’s Map, but Sirius lovingly calls her Charlotte, and strokes her gently every time she gets them out of trouble. 

Things reach a boiling point between Severus and Lily around Christmas. Severus’s friends have done their part, infesting his mind further with talk of blood and purity and a master race of wizards. Lily can barely stand his views, and so she usually avoids talking to him about it, and they sit quietly in the library. It gets particularly awful when a third year trips over on a staircase in front of them, causing Severus to trip over also, and Severus calls him one of those really awful names for muggle-born people. Lily, having none of it, reminds Severus that, as a half blood, and with his mother’s magical heritage, he might as well be muggle-born.  
Severus loses his mind at this accusation, which is honest to goodness truth. He flips out in the middle of a corridor, calls her two alternative shitty names for muggle-borns, both of which imply sexual subservience, and she slaps him in the face with tears in her eyes.  
“That’s it.” She stamps her foot. “Ten years of friendship you’ve just thrown down the drain.” She then proceeds to walk away. She doesn’t look back. 

She sees Severus again the next day from a distance. He has a black eye she knows he can’t bring himself to get seen at the hospital. She can’t bring herself to care about it anymore. 

Lily, despite five years of muggle schooling in maths, can’t seem to put two and two together for Severus’s black eye, and James’s split knuckles. 

James catches Lily off guard one afternoon at the table in the library that used to be hers and Severus’s, but she has since claimed in the divorce, and James ruffles up her hair. Hoping for Gideon, Lily looks up from her chair and beams at him, before quickly furrowing her brow.  
“Potter,” she says with confusion.  
“Evans,” he responds, taking an empty seat at her table. “How are you?”  
“I’m kind of bus-”  
“That’s great. Look, I need your help.”  
“No thanks,” Lily says, flicking the page in her book.  
“I haven’t even asked you what I need help with!” he exclaims.  
“Go on then,” Lily sighs. “What do you need?”  
“See, I need a date to Hogsmeade-”  
“Oh for goodness sakes, Potter,” Lily said, standing up and hastily throwing her books and quills into her bag. “What about ‘not interested’ gets lost in your monkey brain?”  
She grabbed her bag, now full, and then grabbed James’s head, and scratched around.  
“Here, if you like ruffling up people’s hair so much, maybe you should try the look yourself!”  
James, with freshly ruffled and rumpled hair, hair that was usually kept pretty tame, thanks to his father’s Sleekeazy’s hair potion, watched Lily walk away, thoroughly confused. He went to run his hand over his hair to smooth it, thought better of it, and resisted that urge for the next six or seven years. 

Taylah, ever the athlete, runs at least two miles around the castle every morning. Remus wakes with the dawn and starts studying, and can usually be found with the Map open next to him, keeping an eye on her familiar path.

Mary Macdonald is caught in a third floor closet snogging Bryce Flinchley from Ravenclaw, and the news travels like wildfire.

Lily notices that the words they use for half blood Bryce are different to the words they use for Muggle-born Mary. 

Fourth year is not _all_ hormonal drama. Death Eaters kill two muggles in a park, and it makes the muggle and wizard news. Proponents for a Pure Blood Only Hogwarts are suddenly a _thing_. Lily sees for the first time someone whip a House Elf. 

Jason Wells’s parents pull him out of school and start home schooling instead. Mary, Jason, and Louise become just Mary and Louise. The Gryffindor common room loses quiet Jason, and suddenly becomes significantly quieter. 

*~*

Gideon and Fabian keep hold of Potions Club for fifth year, and Lily tries to build up a little of that Gryffindor courage the Sorting Hat must have thought she’d possessed. She tries to ask Gideon to the Christmas Ball. He blanches, cuts her off, and pats her shoulder awkwardly. He is going with Norah Ritter, from his own year. Lily shrugs it off with a ‘Yeah, sure, no problem, of course, of course.’

When she returns upstairs, she cries and cries and is completely inconsolable in her grief. Taylah and Evanna bring chocolate and somehow find some firewhiskey and Lily pretends that this is some kind of montage out of a teen movie, and the whole thing makes her feel better enough to mask the sting of Gideon’s rejection.

Sam Lane from Ravenclaw takes her to the Christmas Ball, and she snogs him. It’s pretty wet, and kind of gross, but at least now she’s successfully completed snogging. He doesn’t try to get his fingers in her dress, so she counts it as a win. Evanna, all dolled up in purple, her dark hair fashioned into curls, had been taken by Cameron McCarthy, who was a sixth year, and she ends the evening by slapping his face and storming off, red-faced. The Marauders, Lily hears second hand from Evanna, stood howling in laughter at her predicament. She also hears they were all a bit sloshed. 

Professor McGonagall makes Dumbledore swear not to allow Yule Balls _ever again_.

Taylah declines all invites to the Ball because she really wants Remus to ask her, and he doesn’t. She stays back in the dormitory and plies the girls with mulled wine when they get back. 

Remus doesn’t ask Taylah because he learns she’s waiting for someone specific to ask her, and he knows there’s no chance it’s him, so he doesn’t so much as bother. He plays it cool with the boys, who all take dates and subsequently ignore them most of the evening – except for Sirius, who, if he is to be believed, ostensibly got off with Margot Pierce in the gardens at the end of the night.

James and Sirius are particularly awful this year, full of testosterone and bravado. Sirius makes the Quidditch team, making James thrilled, and making the both of them almost unbearable to be around. Remus, who had been appointed Prefect, in lieu of a better option, really, takes to following them around with a rolled up Daily Prophet and _thwack_ ing them over the head with it when they get particularly out of control. 

This is the peak year of detention for James and Sirius. They get wilder and crazier, seemingly as the days go by. James is suddenly an angry young man, who is keen to take his frustrations out on others. Sirius had always been an angry young man, and seeing these feelings reflected in others, really for the first time since he had gotten along with his family, and could often be seen leading James down an arrogant, dangerous road. Between the two of them, they took to jinxing people for fun, starting riotous chants, and espousing profanities. But truly, James and Sirius were at their worst when Severus was around. 

James takes to carrying around a golden snitch and catching-and-releasing it. Remus can only remind him seventy or eighty times how much of a douchebag this makes him look.  
“It’s particularly douchebag-y because you’re a Chaser,” Lily agrees one day, walking past.  
“Ah Evans,” James grins, turning, all false bravado and manspreading on the couch in the common room. He ruffles up his hair. “See the thing is, that doesn’t really matter.”  
“You’ve never caught a snitch in your life, mate,” Sirius says.  
“Girls don’t care about that stuff, Pads,” James says. Catch. Release.  
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure we do,” Lily calls out on her way up the stairs.  
Catch. Release. Frown up the stairs.  
Catch. Release. Ruffle.  
Oh yeah, James also took to ruffling up his hair to make it look particularly wind-swept or sex-spent – particularly when Lily was within eyeshot. 

None of this Bravado seems to be helped by the day that James, one day in February, finally succeeds in his two year Quest to become an Animagus. 

Admittedly, also not helpful is that when he does it, he’s possibly the coolest animal you can be – an enormous, hulking stag.

Once he’s got it worked out, he’s able to teach Sirius pretty quickly, and Peter picks it up not long after that. When Remus disappears from their dormitory for the next full moon, the remaining Marauders embrace the theatrical by throwing themselves under the invisibility cloak and racing Remus out to the Shrieking Shack. They are all there waiting when Remus arrives, and he is shocked, goes to say something, but then the three of them transform right in front of him – James, a proud stag, Sirius an enormous spectral dog, and Peter a wily rat. Remus can feel their teenage swagger through their animal faces, and, realising what they’ve done without so much as a clue, hauls them in for a hug, pressing his face into Sirius’s shaggy fur. If Sirius feels tears, well, he takes that to his grave.

The Map is changed to reflect their new nicknames, and despite Charlotte being fully functional for over a year, James declares her perfect, and done now that it bears the words ‘Messers Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs’. 

There’s that awful showdown between Snape and James by the lake during OWLs, when James is itching for a fight, and desperate to make Lily pay attention to him. It does not go well. 

Taylah starts an apprenticeship with Madam Michener and Poppy Pomfrey in the hospital wing. Poppy had been a Seventh year when they had all been first years, so it was strange to see her all donned up in Matron clothing, but even stranger to see Taylah in the outfit. She particularly hated the bonnet. But, she wanted to be a Healer, and her grades were not that great. Her charms were good, and transfiguration was fine. If not for Potions Club, however, she would never have gotten through it. Their Defence Against the Dark Arts, like everyone else in the previous ten years, was sorely interrupted, due to Dumbledore’s inability to keep a Professor in the job. However, everyone’s grades were sort of _suitable_ , despite the interruptions. 

Evanna gets a letter from Frank telling her he had proposed to Alice, and she had accepted. Everyone is thrilled. In fact, James takes the opportunity (it’s any excuse, really) to throw an impromptu party in the Gryffindor Common Room.

Remus and Taylah dance around each other all year, really. Taylah tries not to moon over Remus, and Remus’s staunch stoicism simply won’t allow him to try and go after someone he cares about – the risk of having friends is risk enough, but to try for a girlfriend? To try and tether his life to someone like that? That certainly seemed to Remus to be the most selfish thing he could do to someone. 

Nevertheless, they circle one another all year. Remus tutors Taylah in Charms, and in return, she teaches him how to run long-distance. The two of them spend a lot of time together pretending they aren’t dragging out the hours spending time together, Taylah slowly increasing the length of their runs, Remus teaching things not on the syllabus. Desperate to impress, Remus prepares for his running sessions with things like yoga, Taylah getting Lily to check her homework before she takes it to Remus. Remus comes up with increasingly strange reasons for Taylah to be out of the hospital wing when he will need to be there, and Taylah invents increasingly gratuitous reasons to be outside during Quidditch practice, where Remus and Peter can usually be found studying and waiting for James and Sirius. Eventually, come the last day of term, with no more ideas, Taylah simply just starts sunbathing.  
“I don’t under _stand_ ,” Taylah wailed the evening she tried this, after Remus had hastily packed up all of his belongings and legged it up to the castle without a backwards glance. “Most guys, all they want to do is see me get my kit off!” It was true – there had been a small crowd of admirers present until Taylah had quickly reclothed.  
“Remus doesn’t want you to get your kit off,” Sirius said, plonking down next to Evanna.  
“Sirius, you just scared me out of a year of life,” Evanna scolds.  
“Budge up, Longbottom,” he says, elbowing her over to get a little more into her space. “I’m trying to solve The Mooning Moony Problem.”  
“What’s The Mooning Moony Problem?” Lily asked.  
“It’s The Problem we have that whenever Everings is about, we hear this sad sigh from wherever Remus happens to be. It’s distracting.”  
“So if he’s just mooning over her, why doesn’t he want to see her topless?”  
“Hang on hang on, you’re taking my words out of context,” Sirius said.  
“Remus is a sixteen year old boy,” comes a voice from behind her. “Move up a moment won’t you, Evans, there’s a girl.”  
“Potter, what-” Lily protests as James thuds down in the space beside her.  
“He doesn’t want _you_ to get your kit off, _he_ wants to get your kit off. It’s a subtle, but important distinction,” Sirius says with a wink.  
“Pads, you’re making him seem ungentlemanly,” James said. “Let him appear at least a little dignified.”  
“The woman took her clothes off in front of him and he scurried off with his tail between his legs, Prongs,” Sirius said. “There’s no dignity left.”  
“We came here,” James said, speaking over the top of Sirius. “First, to at least try and tell you that Remus is interested in who you are, not just your body. But secondly, out of our desperation over the Mooning Moony Problem, to let you know that it has come to our attention that you’re hot for Remus.”  
“I’m not _hot for_ -” Taylah protested in horror – they were in the Great Hall.  
“We wouldn’t have brought it up,” James said, speaking over Taylah. “Except that we obviously know that Remus is 100% incapable of overcoming his debilitating fear of emotional attachments on his own, so if you are more than just hot for teacher, you should know he’s _never going to make a move._ So if someone’s going to do it, it has to be you.”  
“Never?” Taylah asked.  
“Never.” Sirius confirmed. “The thing about Remus is that he doesn’t think he deserves nice things. And you’re a pretty nice thing, Everings, so…”

A couple of weeks before the end of year, Gideon and Fabian bequeath Lily the Potions Club.  
“Oh, no, surely someone else - a seventh year-” she tries to protest. Gideon and Fabian, who had taken over Potions Club in sixth year themselves, share a smile.  
“Lily, you haven’t needed to be in this club for years. You practically founded it. There’s no one else,” Gideon tells her. 

*~*


End file.
